What was Jon Stewart's exact quote last night on dystopias and gun violence?

Addressing the paranoid "We need lots of guns in case the government attacks us" crowd, he said something along the lines, "People who are placing their fears of a dystopic future over the dystopic present that we have now?"

4. Here's my transcript of the last part of the segment:

After showing clips of a Jan. 7 FOX News interview with a young man who confronted a senator about gun control (citing Stalin, Cambodia, Hitler) and the Alex Jones meltdown:

"Hoooooly shit. No one's taking away ALL the guns. But now I get it, now I see what's happening. So this is what it is. Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present. We can't even begin to address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually, in reality, happening in this country every year because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of imaginary Hitler."

13. No, you missed my point. Also,

why are you telling me this:

further some people do have photographic memories

I posted about people with eidetic memories being one of the exceptions to my remark about Google, which I had qualified with the word "few." Did you assume that I posted that without realizing that some people do have eidetic memories?

12. I've posted this on two threads before, but I will post it again.

Legislators make law. They are the ones whose fears and/or lust for campaign donations determine what gun legislation we have or don't have. Blaming anyone but them for the condition of our gun legislation is not exactly speaking truth to power.

I rarely miss an episode of Daily Show. If I don't catch it during the week, I will usually watch four episodes in a row on the weekend, via On Demand. I have a lot of respect for Stewart's intelligence and his comedic genius. I am disappointed in this approach, though.

19. Yes, because everyone knows all wars are won only by fighter planes.

No ground troops are ever necessary, and a large populace with only small arms and limited supplies available could never possibly resist a vastly smaller yet better equipped military force. Nope, it's never happened, ever......

And for the record, no, I'm not implying I think we should take up arms against our government with my sarcastic remarks, only that the reasoning used in the post I'm replying too is completely flawed. Except for the part about the big military. I tend to agree with Javaman there.

18. Perfect only in its idiocy.

Jon would have to first explain how the proposed gun control would begin to address the violent crime and homicide rates in general (here's a hint, he couldn't even if he were so inclined). And the implication here is that somehow so-called assault weapons are a major factor in our violent crime rate, when in fact all rifles TOTAL are used in about 3% of violent crimes. Check out this video:

What is clear is that you are trying to treat what could be called, at best, a symptom of the problem, and failing to address the root causes entirely. You are supporting an agenda that restricts your personal liberty for the illusion of an increase in safety, which is completely against the ideals of the progressive movement.

20. Fuck Ron Paul. (nt)

22. NRA talking points...

Study after study has found that gun availability is linked to higher homicide rates. The whole "it's just a tool" argument is completely idiotic. The US doesn't have higher violent crime rates than the rest of the developed world, but our homicide rates are way off the chart.

Why? Because in the US it's much easier to get a gun, and guns are much more lethal than fists or knives or clubs.

It's really pretty simple. The guns are not a symptom. The guns are a cause.

25. By the time you read this, you will most likely be gone. But whatever.

Yes. Guns cause violence. They are a tool specifically designed to kill, injure, or simulate killing or injuring another person or thing. They are arguably the most efficient and effective deadly weapon out there, given that they are designed as such.

27. LOL. Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

This should get you started.

1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide (literature review).

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.

We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.

3. Across states, more guns = more homicide

Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period (1988-1997).

After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
...

Abstract
This paper provides new estimates of the effect of household gun prevalence on homicide rates,
and infers the marginal external cost of handgun ownership. The estimates utilize a superior proxy
for gun prevalence, the percentage of suicides committed with a gun, which we validate. Using
county- and state-level panels for 20 years, we estimate the elasticity of homicide with respect to gun
prevalence as between +0.1 and + 0.3. All of the effect of gun prevalence is on gun homicide rates.
Under certain reasonable assumptions, the average annual marginal social cost of household gun
ownership is in the range $100 to $1800.

This paper examines the relationship between gun ownership and
crime. Previous research has suffered from a lack of reliable data on
gun ownership. I exploit a unique data set to reliably estimate annual
rates of gun ownership at both the state and the county levels during
the past two decades. My ﬁndings demonstrate that changes in gun
ownership are signiﬁcantly positively related to changes in the homicide rate, with this relationship driven almost entirely by an impact
of gun ownership on murders in which a gun is used. The effect of
gun ownership on all other crime categories is much less marked.
Recent reductions in the fraction of households owning a gun can
explain one-third of the differential decline in gun homicides relative
to nongun homicides since 1993.

Abstract: This article summarizes
the scientific literature on the health
risks and benefits of having a gun in
the home for the gun owner and his/
her family. For most contemporary
Americans, scientific studies indicate that the health risk of a gun in the
home is greater than the benefit. The
evidence is overwhelming for the fact
that a gun in the home is a risk factor for completed suicide and that gun
accidents are most likely to occur in
homes with guns. There is compelling
evidence that a gun in the home is a
risk factor for intimidation and for killing women in their homes. On the benefit side, there are fewer studies, and
there is no credible evidence of a deterrent effect of firearms or that a gun
in the home reduces the likelihood or
severity of injury during an altercation
or break-in. Thus, groups such as the
American Academy of Pediatrics urge
parents not to have guns in the home

37. Were any of those studies making a first time appearance on the DanTex Show?

43. In other words, no.

You don't want to even try to understand the evidence. Why bother with science, when you have youtube videos and NRA talking points? Why try and make a cogent argument when you just repeat some buzzwords?

It's a very common trait among right-wingers. Keep the head buried in the sand, don't let any evidence leak in.

46. lol, I do understand the evidence.

What I'm saying is that I do not find it compelling as it relates to this particular issue. If we were to address what I believe to be the root causes of crime (poverty, poor education, unemployment, along with a lot of other social factors) but still found ourselves with a serious violent crime problem, then I would be more inclined to believe there is something more beyond pure correlation between violent crime and the availability of firearms. Assuming one were able to effectively address the failures of that correlation without trying to explain it away by citing the differences between communities as it pertains to what I listed as the true root causes of violent crime earlier, because that leads right back to the true root cause NOT being the firearms.

But of course, addressing poverty, education, unemployment...those are all just NRA talking points according to you.

48. It's actually pretty clear that you don't.

If you did, you would realize that the US does not have violent crime rates out of line with the rest of the developed world. Only homicide rates. We don't actually have a violent crime problem. We have a homicide problem specifically. A gun homicide problem, that is -- even our non-gun homicide rates are not out of line.

In the last post you claimed you had "significant evidence that not only disproves that correlative relationship". In this post, you claim that there are "failures of that correlation". But the only evidence you have actually provided is a youtube video.

I'll ask again. Do you have any alternate explanation that explains the statistically significant link between gun ownership and homicide, other than the obvious and well-documented fact that gun crime is much more lethal than non-gun crimes? You can blather on about "root causes", but that doesn't explain the statistical evidence.

Since 2008 we have received funding from the Joyce Foundation to write a dozen scientific articles on firearms issues, to disseminate findings through press releases, Bulletins, and to create a firearms literature digest.

One of these studies, though it is not often cited in this context, was conducted by Duggan.22 In that study, titled “More Guns, More Crime,” Duggan used sales of Guns & Ammo magazine as his proxy measure for gun ownership. He demonstrated the validity of his proxy measure in part by demonstrating that state-level magazine sales were very closely linked to a state-level count of gun shows. The regression coefficient was 0.995; a 10% change in either measure was associated with a 10% change in the other. As a practical matter, the study would have found a nearly identical relationship between gun ownership and gun crime had the number of gun shows, not the number of magazines sold, been used as a proxy for gun ownership. Such a study might have been titled, “More Gun Shows, More Crime.”

Taking all these points together, we believe the study by Duggan et al. is fatally flawed. The specifics of the hypothesis tested in the study essentially precluded the possibility of a positive finding, and the statistical power problem in itself is sufficient to render the study's results essentially incapable of interpretation.23 Beyond this, the data used for the analysis contain important ascertainment and classification errors that introduce biases toward the null, and the results are not robust.

76. Of course! It's all a conspiracy by "big gun control". LOL.

I notice that you haven't even attempted to address the content of the studies. Hmm. Why would that be?

Sorry, but these are peer reviewed studies. Which means that, unless you think that the editorial boards of all of the journals are in on the conspiracy (along with Harvard, UChicago, etc.), you're going to have to do a little better than "anti-gun bias".

I especially like your attack on Mark Duggan. You mean he has done research on more than just one topic! Blasphemy!

80. So far, neither you nor anyone else has pointed out a single flaw in any of those studies.

I get that right-wingers are inherently suspicious of science, but, sorry to say, none of the authors have been "discredited" and none of the research is "bought and paid for". In fact, all of the authors are highly reputed researchers at top universities.

The funding comes from various sources, and all of the studies I cited have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Some of it the government, and some from private foundations that stepped in after the NRA got Republicans in congress to cut funds for gun violence research. But there's no profit motive, and there's no "big gun control". The proper analogy is not Exxon (that would be the NRA, with industry ties), but rather the American Cancer Society, which is also a private foundation, and which also funds research, and which is also opposed by an industry backed-lobby that tries to suppress research.

And, really, if the research were so flawed and corrupt as you say, I imagine you'd be able to find a single flaw in any of it. Right?

33. Oh please, try not to laugh. Try not to laugh if someone you love is a victim

of a shooter with a disturbed mind who found weapons of war right there in his own home because his mother feared some phantom menace who turned out to be her own son. Who is more disturbed here, the mother? the son? or you, who thinks the idea that military weapons cause violence is laughable? You're laughter is the evil laugh of a madman! Go find your own evidence, you can find many destroyed families and communities to laugh about.

39. Oohhhhh...BIG mistake - asking DanT for evidence?!?

42. If only the supposed evidence he had showed anything beyond a lose correlation at best.

Oh, he overwhelms you with lots of links, but that doesn't give them any extra weight. And honestly, anybody who dismisses the addressing of poverty, poor education, and job availability as "NRA talking points" isn't somebody who I'm trusting all that much to begin with.

45. Do you trust this? If there were no guns there would be no gun violence?

Not ignoring the causes of crime and violence is certainly important. Especially when trying to reduce levels of cime and violence.

But if one wanted to substantially reduce the levels of gun related crime and violence, and the potential of more (which is THE issue being discussed), they could also substantially reduce the number of guns.

58. You make a claim based on an assumption, then yell at me about not knowing the "basic facts."

Tell me, was their an increase in the rate of decline of the homicide rate in Australia after they passed their gun control measures? How about in the UK? No, there wasn't. The homicide rate in Australia has continued an overall decline, and the UK rate actually went up, then came back down again, after their 1967 legislation was passed.

The point is that I believe you are barking up the wrong tree when it comes to draconian gun control measures, and that our time and effort would be better served in combating poverty, poor education, unemployment, mental health care, etc.

62. Insanity

> s, and that our time and effort would be better served in combating poverty, poor education, unemployment, mental health care, etc.

This is the insane calculus of Delicate Flowers: solving a BUNCH of MEGA problems (that have resisted being fixed since, well, humanity came down from the trees) is "easier" than more gun control & regulation.

63. Umm, no the claim is based on statistics.

It is well known that gun assaults are more likely to result in death than assaults with other weapons besides knives. So reducing the number of gun assaults will necessarily result in a lower homicide rate, even if every single gun assault is replaced with a knife assault or an assault with another weapon. Is this really that complicated?

If you are interested in an analysis of the result of Australia's gun ban, here is a good article for you to read from the Harvard School of Public Health. In fact, the homicide rate did decline since then, and there have been no mass shootings since. There is some debate as to how much of the homicide decline is attributable to the gun buyback, or to other factors -- it is not easy to determine statistically given that this is just one series of data. Again, this illustrates why you need to look at the evidence in it's totality, not just cherry pick a few stats that suit your argument. See, for example, the studies that I linked to above.

For Australia, a difficulty with determining the effect of the law was that gun deaths were falling in the
early 1990s. No study has explained why gun deaths were falling, or why they might be expected to
continue to fall. Yet most studies generally assumed that they would have continued to drop without
the NFA. Many studies still found strong evidence for a beneficial effect of the law.

From the perspective of 1996, it would have been difficult to imagine more compelling future
evidence of a beneficial effect of the law. Whether or not one wants to attribute the effects as being
due to the law, everyone should be pleased with what happened in Australia after the NFA—the
elimination of firearm massacres (at least up to the present) and an immediate, and continuing,
reduction in firearm suicide and firearm homicide.

70. Do you have any criticism of it?

Beyond your false paraphrasing, that is. I'm not sure this upsets you so much -- it is a fair assessment of the evidence, which is that homicide rates did go down, but it's not clear how much of that is attributable to the ban.

I wonder if just the very idea of looking at evidence in a systematic way offends you. It must be a strange new experience for you to read a careful and sober analysis from an actual scientist, rather than cherry-picking and jumping to conclusions based on youtube videos.

72. Excellent analogy. You hit that nail right on it's head. Alcohol and guns are alike.

Alcohol like guns give cowards courage. A coward would not beat his wife when sober and a coward would not get close enough to another person to stab or hit them. Ok, it's not a real good analogy, but I think you are on the right track. Thank you for helping us make our point about guns being bad for any civilized society.

26. lol, Hi, DanTex.

I do hope you enjoy distracting from the true root causes of crime in our nation while you're on your little, completely unsupported by any actual scientific evidence, crusade against guns and gun owners. I'm sure it must make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

If you are interested in some peer reviewed studies, see post 27. Of course, if you were actually interested in evidence, you wouldn't be posting youtube videos with NRA talking points in the first place...

35. Peer reviewed studies that, at best, show a correlative relationship, are of no interest to me.

Not when there is significant evidence that not only disproves that correlative relationship, but that underscores the various root causes of violent crime in general. Of course, it must be so easy to just dismiss anything you don't agree with on this issue as simply an "NRA talking point, and therefore automatically untrue."

44. Interesting that you have such strong opinions without actually reading any of the studies.

And what "significant evidence" is there that disproves the relationship? And why is it that this evidence always appears in youtube video format, and not peer reviewed study format?

I'm interested. Explain how guns are associated with higher homicide rates, internationally, and also at the state and county level. That the relationship holds up even after controlling for various socioeconomic factors. And that the effect is specific to homicide -- more guns don't generally have a significant effect on overall violent crime rates, but they do on homicide, because guns are more deadly than other weapons.

53. " That the relationship holds up even after controlling for various socioeconomic factors"

No, it doesn't. I know one of your papers you cited claims it does ("More guns, More crime" to be specific) but he actually failed to fully address the issue. Based on his position, Switzerland should have a firearm homicide rate of around 1.5, but it's a third of that. He simply does not account for other socio-economic factors as he claims he does, pure and simple.

55. Again, you really need to read the studies. And also take a basic class in statistics.

Two of the studies I linked to do in fact control for various socioeconomic factors, the Duggan study you cite, and also the Ludwig Cook study. When you say "he actually failed to fully address the issue", that is a completely empty statement.

About Switzerland, both of those studies dealt with the US, not foreign countries (seriously, it helps to actually read them LOL). But beyond that, what you fundamentally misunderstand is that no study claims to be able to predict exactly what the homicide rate will just by the number of guns. Obviously there are other factors, which is why a single datapoint (e.g. Switzerland) neither proves or disproves much of anything. In order to draw meaningful conclusions you have to analyze the evidence in its totality.

I'm still waiting for your plausible alternate hypothesis that explains the statistical evidence. If it's all about "root causes" and guns have no effect, then how come study after study finds a link between gun ownership and homicide rates?

64. I love it, so you admit that the studies failed to address this major flaw...

...but then think of that failure as somehow a proof of the veracity of the study itself. Wow, just wow. The failure to make that comparison and explain the discord between the two nations is what calls the veracity of the study into question. It is hardly an "empty statement."

And once again, correlation does NOT equal causation, which is what I've said time and time again, and all you have to bring to the table is correlative evidence. Given that your studies failed to address one of the biggest flaws in that correlative relationship as I've highlighted, I simply don't understand how you can argue that they show a causal link. And please don't act like you're not, because any time somebody highlights the purely correlative nature of your evidence, you get all up in arms (no pun intended).

I think this is about it for us here Dan. Time and time again its the same old song and dance routine. You post flawed studies, others pick them apart, you hand-wave about how statistical data from such biased sources as the FBI and Home Office are "NRA talking points" and we go around in circles.

67. LOL. What "major flaw" would that be?

Why don't you actually come out and state the flaw, so we can address it? I love how the NRA people are always talking about "flaws" in the peer reviewed studies, but never name them.

PS. I'm still waiting for any plausible explanation as to why all these studies keep finding a link between guns and homicide. Simply saying "correlation is not causation" is not an answer. Particularly when these studies go to lengths to control for possible sources of reverse correlation or confounding. What you are doing is simply repeating catchphrases but avoiding the substance of the argument.

If you were right, and it were all about "root causes" and had nothing to do with guns, then we wouldn't find this pattern that areas with more guns have higher homicide rates.

41. 30,000 associated with guns, not violent crimes.

The number of gun related homicides is around 9,000. And no, I find it unlikely that the currently proposed AWB will have any impact on that number whatsoever. Nor even on the number of total deaths associated with guns. So no, the benefits we all share will actually be completely imagined.

66. And that is why you'll fail.

Not only fail to reduce the number of guns, but also expend political capital on a failed attempt to address what is, at best, a symptom of a much larger problem, hindering our ability to address those other root issues of the problem. Congrats, I hope you're proud.

69. You left out something important I think - you haven't said WHY it would fail(?). Do you

not agree that severly reducing the number of guns will substantially reduce the levels of gun related deaths?

Proud? It's actually embarassing, to realize that so many gun owners are so selfish and scared that all they care about is themselves and their perceived needs & wants concerning guns. No matter how you try to justify it, your selfish notions about guns aren't worth the costs.

71. I too often used to call comedy sketches idiotic merely because..

I too, often used to call comedy sketches idiotic merely because they are directed against one of my sacred cows, and then try to rationalize it by minimizing the progressive values of others once it became obvious to all that's what I was doing...